Proof of God

[Z]

Yes. Dogma.





You do.

Dogma-a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof.

Then you are a fellow man of faith i.e. dogma, because you have no proof either.

Your OP thus far does not constitute proof; rather, it demonstrates a post-hoc rationalization of faith.

Except that's not what I'm attacking. You're purportedly critiquing my reasoning when your entire world view is based on nothing.

Explain. AFAIK, I've never explained my entire world view to you, nor explained what I base that world view on. But please, elaborate.

The "World outside" meaning outside of the cause of our consciousness, whatever that may be.

Ah, so external to the brain.

In that case, you're quite wrong, since imagination, thought, etc. all originate within the brain - and originate external to consciousness.

Give me an example of a 'thought' that isn't totally reliant upon external experiences.

An obvious impossibility. Not the thought itself, but giving you an example of said thought. Why? Because to express such a thought, I have to put it into language, which ARE totally reliant upon external experiences. The best I could give you is to say 'abstract thoughts'. An abstract thought could well be completely free of any necessity of external experiences.

The only way we could know for sure, is to have someone born free of any senses whatsoever, and have them develop senses at some point well after developing long-term memory, and have them describe their thoughts prior to developing senses to us.

Since that's never happened so far, we cannot express what a thought free of external experiences would be like, only what they might be like.

Firstly, I'm saying there must be some dichotomy between conscious thoughts and unconscious causes of those thoughts if indeed the causes of our thoughts are ourselves.

Sure there are. Conscious thoughts are in one part of the brain, the unconscious causes are in another part, and both parts are inside ourselves.

Secondly, I never said that God can't suffer from the infinite regress problem either.

Actually, you have by choosing to claim that you can logically prove the existence of the Biblical God, who is 'his own beginning and ending'. Hence, the Biblical God violates infinite regress, and you claim to be able to prove (via the logical structure you started in your OP) this God's existence.

It's not relevant to the existence of a God. God exists whether he was made by another previous God or whether he made himself.

You forgot to add "...if God exists at all.

And it obviously does matter, since the Biblical God had no maker, and therefore violates the notion of infinite regress.

Nevertheless, you failed to respond appropriately to my post. Evasion noted.

Now, a brief comment on your pseudo-proof that has gained so much attention above:

1) what if only one world exists?
2) what if, no matter how many worlds exist, there is no God in ANY world?

Another small comment: your tone is exceptionally aggressive and belittling, and your responses to people's well thought out replies are often equivalent of saying, 'nuh-uh. nope. 'cuz I said so.' For someone with such a verbose and overinflated opening post, your replies since then read like a semi-literate third-grader taunting the school nerd.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Then you are a fellow man of faith i.e. dogma, because you have no proof either.

Your OP thus far does not constitute proof; rather, it demonstrates a post-hoc rationalization of faith.

How?

Explain. AFAIK, I've never explained my entire world view to you, nor explained what I base that world view on. But please, elaborate.

No evidence.

Ah, so external to the brain.

No. If we're simply a "conscious being" then our "unconscious selves" would be outside of our conscious selves.

In that case, you're quite wrong, since imagination, thought, etc. all originate within the brain - and originate external to consciousness.

All imaginations and thoughts have their bases in our experiences of the world outside of our minds. I can think of none that don't.

An obvious impossibility. Not the thought itself, but giving you an example of said thought. Why? Because to express such a thought, I have to put it into language, which ARE totally reliant upon external experiences. The best I could give you is to say 'abstract thoughts'. An abstract thought could well be completely free of any necessity of external experiences.

The only way we could know for sure, is to have someone born free of any senses whatsoever, and have them develop senses at some point well after developing long-term memory, and have them describe their thoughts prior to developing senses to us.

Since that's never happened so far, we cannot express what a thought free of external experiences would be like, only what they might be like.

Right. Any thoughts or imaginations are based solely upon the information from our senses. Our brains develop from the input from our senses. Someone born without the ability to see, feel, taste, smell, hear, would probably not develop any ability to even think.

Sure there are. Conscious thoughts are in one part of the brain, the unconscious causes are in another part, and both parts are inside ourselves.

Even if we were simply "thinking beings" there must be a dichotomy.

Actually, you have by choosing to claim that you can logically prove the existence of the Biblical God, who is 'his own beginning and ending'. Hence, the Biblical God violates infinite regress, and you claim to be able to prove (via the logical structure you started in your OP) this God's existence.

In the OP I've only proven a deistic God.

Now, a brief comment on your pseudo-proof that has gained so much attention above:

1) what if only one world exists?
2) what if, no matter how many worlds exist, there is no God in ANY world?

If that were the case there would be no God.

Another small comment: your tone is exceptionally aggressive and belittling, and your responses to people's well thought out replies are often equivalent of saying, 'nuh-uh. nope. 'cuz I said so.' For someone with such a verbose and overinflated opening post, your replies since then read like a semi-literate third-grader taunting the school nerd.

No. I say "Nuh-uh" and then explain how they are wrong. There's a difference.

 

[zooterkin]

In the OP I've only proven a deistic God.

As opposed to what other sort of god?

ETA: Never mind, my fault for not checking that 'deism' has a specific meaning. Just to check, you mean a god who created the world and then left it to run on its own?

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

As opposed to what other sort of god?

ETA: Never mind, my fault for not checking that 'deism' has a specific meaning. Just to check, you mean a god who created the world and then left it to run on its own?

Yes. Though it could probably be stretched to a theistic God with little effort. I'll type up my arguments in support of a Theistic God and specifically a Christian God (Yahweh) later.

 

[andyandy]

In the OP I've only proven a deistic God.

.

to recap - your proof through ontological argument...

"positive property" is necessary and sufficient for "God"
We assume God is positive, therefore God has positive property
We assume God is omnipresent therefore God exists.

Therefore God does exist and must exist.


It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. No, wait, it still is pretty funny

 

[Morrigan]

Troll.

 

[Hokulele]

I may have missed it (I admit, I didn't read everything in this thread), but did Dustin anywhere address whether his proof only applies to monotheism as opposed to polytheism? Would polytheism be just as valid a result of his "proof"?

I know he mentioned a single god, and linked it to the OT, but I didn't see anything reducing the number of potential gods down to just one.

 

[andyandy]

I may have missed it (I admit, I didn't read everything in this thread), but did Dustin anywhere address whether his proof only applies to monotheism as opposed to polytheism? Would polytheism be just as valid a result of his "proof"?

I know he mentioned a single god, and linked it to the OT, but I didn't see anything reducing the number of potential gods down to just one.

Dustin is under the impression that he has simply proved an OmniGod so far - he has promised to prove the Christian God later....

 

[zooterkin]

Yes. Though it could probably be stretched to a theistic God with little effort. I'll type up my arguments in support of a Theistic God and specifically a Christian God (Yahweh) later.

So, what do you mean by 'Theistic God'? That's surely just tautological, since 'theism' is just belief in god or gods?

Anyway, is a deistic god necessarily omnipresent?

 

[Hokulele]

Dustin is under the impression that he has simply proved an OmniGod so far - he has promised to prove the Christian God later....

An OmniGod, eh? I could really use one of those this week.

I'll be patient on the Christian God, I've got millions of Shinto kami lined up waiting to play . . .

 

[D'rok]

--snip--

I’m going to prove a couple of things including the existence of God, validity of theism and faultiness of a distinctly secular or atheistic worldview. I’m going to do this by drawing together some of the philosophical and scientific developments of the past few centuries into a consistent logical and reasonable framework relying on epistemological certitude which will negate the need for dogmatism in theistic beliefs.

--snip--

Well....after that "gift" of wisdom Glaucon feels a little dirty...kind of like those German Goo-girls must feel.

Dustin - I forgot to thank you for so clearly identifying yourself as an evangelical Christian in the thread I started for your beliefs.

Wow. I had no idea. In hindsight it seems obvious. This explains a lot.

I guess when the Sophoclean Chorus asked this of Dustin...

Was it madness that struck your mind?
Or was it a god great bounds away,
Who leapt upon your life,
Bringing disaster?
Cry, cry misfortune! I cannot bear to look.
Many things I wish to ask.
I wish to learn, I wish to see.
But you are blinding me with horror.

Ah, what a dreadful thing you've done! How could you bear
To put out your sight? Which god spurred you on?


...the answer was YHWH. Sad, really.

I've changed my requirement for evidence of god. I will pray to YHWH that Dustin/Oedipus regains his sight. If this happens, I'm a believer. If the universe is that ironic, why fight it?

 

[Z]

How?

Read the various posts above this one by various posters.

It's quite obvious.

No evidence.

Yes, I know you have no evidence of the assertion that my world view is based upon nothing, since I've never described to you either my worldview nor its basis. I also never explained what I have faith in, nor what reason I give to accept faith (belief without proof), nor on what subjects.

Do you accept that your senses are telling you the truth? That's faith.

Do you believe that you exist (as opposed to being only a small portion of a larger thinking being)? That's faith.

And you've already admitted (elsewhere) to being an Evangelical Christian, who believes in the Bible and God (as Trinity) - none of which with any evidence to back it up. So you, too, are a man of faith.

Now you're attempting to write logical 'proofs' to support your faith - that would be ad-hoc rationalization.

And 'proofs' do not constitute evidence, nor proof in the common-usage sense.

Even if - and so far, it seems a HUGE if - your 'proof' works out in the end, it still won't be positive evidence for any God, much less the Christian God.

No. If we're simply a "conscious being" then our "unconscious selves" would be outside of our conscious selves.

It's time for you to define what we are then. As near as I can tell, we consist of both conscious and unconscious components, all internal to us.

If you're limitiing us to only 'conscious beings', then you're reducing what we are to one small section of the brain - and not even the most important part, either. And by this, then memory, most thoughts, decision, senses, beliefs, hopes, fears, etc. are ALL external to us. NOTHING AT ALL is internal, except the processing of awareness itself, and even that is partially external to us!

Your definition - if it is 'a conscious being' - is useless in any practical sense.

All imaginations and thoughts have their bases in our experiences of the world outside of our minds. I can think of none that don't.

Then you have a poor sense of abstraction and imagination.

Right. Any thoughts or imaginations are based solely upon the information from our senses. Our brains develop from the input from our senses. Someone born without the ability to see, feel, taste, smell, hear, would probably not develop any ability to even think.

I disagree, though I think their thoughts would be entirely alien to us. But in a meaningful sense, I would tenetively agree.

However, that's following the causal chain past the necessities of reason in order to stretch a point beyond credulity. You're saying that the causes of thoughts have to be external to us - sure, ultimately, all causation could be traced back to the Big Bang, at least, so every thought, imagining, etc. can be said to have its cause (ultimately) being external to us. EVERYTHING including us had its cause external to us, regardless of what you believe (solipsists and acosmists notwithstanding).

However, your argument is resting on the idea that experiences - all experiences - begin outside of us. What I'm challenging is mainly your definition of what 'we' are. If we are our physical selves, including the flesh and bone and blood and brain, then many experiences are initiated within ourselves, rather than without. However, you seem to be using an extremely limited version of what 'we' are.

This demonstrates the absolute importance of pre-defining your terms.

Maybe we can move past this paragraph if you re-write it with properly defined terms?

Even if we were simply "thinking beings" there must be a dichotomy.

Why? Explain.

In the OP I've only proven a deistic God.

Not even that much. But you've also mentioned intending to prove a Theistic and even a Christian God.

See, part of your 'proof' of a deistic God leads to the inevitable conclusion that such a God must be prone to infinite regression. That conclusion, though not explicitely stated in your own conclusion, is nevertheless a conclusion that must be carried forward in the two proceeding proofs; it will necessarily come to conflict when attempting to prove the Christian God. Remove that conclusion from the C.G. proof, and you will also have to remove it - and all related arguments - from the D.G. proof, which in turn will cause most of your theory to shift alarmingly to one side, and possibly even collapse.

That's the trap of complex proofs - you have to carefully watch all of your premises and assumptions at every step to make sure they remain internally consistant throughout. You can't take a single conclusion in isolation and use that to start a whole new series of proofs with new assumptions and new axioms, if those assumptions and axioms, when applied to the original proof, would cause a failure in the original conclusion!

Do you see what I'm trying to say, in spite of my lack of clear language?

If that were the case there would be no God.

Exactly. And the 'proof' fails as a result.

No. I say "Nuh-uh" and then explain how they are wrong. There's a difference.

From what I've seen that's exactly what you don't do, at least half of the time.

But that was a much more civil reply. Nicely done.

 

[D'rok]

I got a royal (and deserved) smackdown from C4ts for this very thing, so I'm going to gleefully re-use his move:

I am writing up this short post concerning theism though not necessarily Christianity itself and the credence in theism and or deism in order to provide an efficacious and determinative composition concerning the beliefs thereof and the extenuation or apologia in a palliative framework based upon dialectic syllogistics in coherence which will in my assessment be unambiguously irrefrangible. I want to stress that the following post was condensed into a breviloquent and concise framework who’s aim is sheer simplicity and practicality.

Cleanup on isle 7. Someone spilled the thesaurus.

 

[andyandy]

I got a royal (and deserved) smackdown from C4ts for this very thing, so I'm going to gleefully re-use his move:

[dustin]waffle waffle[/dustin]

.

that is so my new sig

 

[modecom]

Explain to me Darwin's theory of Evolution using no words.

OK

 

[calebprime]

C.S. Lewis once said concerning Christianity "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." I am writing up this short post concerning theism though not necessarily Christianity itself and the credence in theism and or deism in order to provide an efficacious and determinative composition concerning the beliefs thereof and the extenuation or apologia in a palliative framework based upon dialectic syllogistics in coherence which will in my assessment be unambiguously irrefrangible. I want to stress that the following post was condensed into a breviloquent and concise framework who’s aim is sheer simplicity and practicality. Furthermore much of what I wrote in this post was removed due to conservation of space.

...

He did write that.

 

[D'rok]

For all the lurkers, I'd just like to point out Dustin's fundamental assumption which is also his fundamental error.

Dustin must (and does) equivocate proof with evidence. If he does not, then even if he is successful in constructing a deductively valid proof of god, it has no bearing on the reality of god. But if a logical proof is the same thing as observational evidence, then he succeeds.

This is why he will consistently and fervently maintain that he can interchange the two terms at will, and he will use the prosaic dictionary definition to back this up.

His entire house of cards is constructed on this single assumption.

 

[zooterkin]

Dustin must (and does) equivocate proof with evidence.

I assume you meant to type 'equate' rather than 'equivocate'?

 

[D'rok]

I assume you meant to type 'equate' rather than 'equivocate'?

No. I meant equivocate:
Defn: To use equivocal language intentionally.

Equivocal:
Defn: Allowing the possibility of several different meanings, as a word or phrase, esp. with intent to deceive or misguide; susceptible of double interpretation; deliberately ambiguous

Here's the wikipedia defn of equivocation:
Equivocation is the misleading use of a word with more than one meaning (by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time).


He's not exactly equating proof with evidence. He admits the difference, he just insists on picking the context that suits him.

 

[Loss Leader]

I haven't read the entire thread so I don't know if this has been pointed out. I'm just going to highlight the parts in the OP where Dustin makes his primary logical error and, in so doing, fails to prove anything about anything:

TNow I will make the first postulation which is ’N’ is “God” if and only if it’s essential properties are “positive” ... N exists in some possible ’world’ where N is defined as encompassing all possible worlds.

So, right there Dustin "proves" the existence of God by assuming the existence of God. Oh, he dressed it up all fancy-like but acalling something a Chilean sea bass doesn't change the fact that it's still just a Patagonian toothfish.

There's more:

One possible reason so many belief in a God is because they are genetically predisposed to believe in such. ... Perhaps religious people have a specific ability to sense the creator the way people with working eyes and ears have a specific ability to sense the fire truck.

This is an argument from ... guessing. It's just guessing. There is no reason why a biological disposition towards religion necessarily indicates that religion is correct. Any claim that it does is just an argument from ignorance or incredulity.

On the contrary, We can not say for sure what advantages those with religious predispositions had in ancient times if any... The man who is deaf and blind can not see any evidence in support of the existence of a fire truck barreling by with it’s sirens screaming. Does this mean it isn’t there? Of course not.

Argument from analogy. As has been often repeated, no new information can be gained by analogy. All that analogy can do is either: 1) teach someone something that has already been proven; or 2) suggest a conclusion which can be testably proven or disproven.

The fact that he suffers from a biological impairment doesn’t mean that he is right to claim that there is no evidence of a fire truck simply because he can not perceive it. He is not justified in doing so.

A particularly disgusting little logical trick, Dustin has in this sentence shifted the burden of proof from the proponent ("there IS a fire truck") to the opponent ("there is not"). That's not the way things work. If he wants to prove the existence of God, he has the burden of proof. The blind man is perfectly justified in stating, "I will not believe in fire trucks until you show me evidence of them."

Studies have shown that on average people who are religious, attend church often, pray often and believe in God are more happier than those people of the same age group and demographic who don’t. Belief in God makes people happy and it’s no wonder.... If something works within our worldview and reference frame then we use it for practical reasons. We must hold it to be true even if it can’t necessarily be empirically proven.

Assuming that all of Dustin's facts are right, his logical error here is a non-sequitor. This is his argument:

1. Belief in God makes people happy.
2. Being happy "works".
3. Thus, God exists.

But 1 and 2 don't necessarily lead to 3. If they are both true, 1 and 2 lead to the conclusion: "People should believe in God." There's just no reason why believing in God necessarily equals the existence of God.

And, in fact, we can take issue with whether being happy is a good thing, whether "happiness" equates with a religion "working" and all sorts of other problems with the truthfulness of these things. For instance, a religious belief that "works" would, to me, mean that prayers come true. As I am not currently dating Natalie Portman, we know for a fact that prayers do not come true.

If “God” fits into our pragmatic worldview like a puzzle piece then it must logically be true or else our entire puzzle falls apart just as the scientific method falls apart

A non-sequitor. He has perhaps shown that "religion" fits into our worldview, not "God."

I hope this following was as simple and clear as I hoped it would be

I am skeptical that Dustin hoped this would be simple and clear. He has hidden his logical errors in a wall of meaningless text and I, at least, believe he has done so on purpose.